Work Spouses: Taboo or New Tradition?

Let's face it, we've all seen it, and perhaps some of us have been guilty of it. If you have spent a great deal of time (as in the usual 40-plus hours a week) in an office environment, then you may have grown attached to someone of the opposite sex who isn't your spouse. Is the phenomenon of the "work spouse" taboo or a new tradition?

GQ writer Seth Stevenson recently wrote a piece for Yahoo! Shine on a set of guidelines for work spouses based on his own experience. One tip is that only one of you should be married in real life. You would think that both of you should be married; however, if only one of you is married, then it keeps the mystique alive, while delivering the uneven truth of reality. It's the perfect mixture of freedom and belonging.

Another tip Stevenson has on finding the right spouse is that a person should never marry down. What does this mean? It means that you can happily complain about your cohorts or senior managers as long as your fairly significant other is on the same "organizational plane" as you.

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